Kurt Helin

In the end, there will be no trade of Dwight Howard until the Orlando Magic are completely and utterly convinced that they cannot sign him to stay, and then that they got the best possible deal they could for him. Neither of those things are going to happen before Dec. 25. But should the Magic…

The biggest free agent on the market is going nowhere. After flirting with a few teams including the Rockets, Pacers and Nets, Brazilian center Nene has re-signed with the Denver Nuggets with a five-year, $67 million deal, according Marc Stein at ESPN. That is a really fair deal for both sides, Nene is well paid…

Jamal Crawford doesn’t know what to do. Don’t take my word for it, this was his tweet Monday night. There’s pro’s and cons about the remaining teams I could be playing for this year..#confused Who are those teams? Well, not Indiana — Larry Bird offered two years, $10 million to Crawford but he shot that…

The entire Chris Paul saga reminds me of the NBA lockout, just flipped on its head. In the lockout, the owners and league made wild demands of the players, and since the owners had the leverage they got most of what they wanted (they got the money, which is what mattered most). With CP3, the…

Dallas keeps looking for ways to bring in veterans and keep their cap space open for next summer — you listening Deron Williams — and they made another move along those lines today. Rudy Fernandez and Corey Brewer are going to Denver for a second round pick, reports Marc Stein at ESPN. That works financially…

Josh McRoberts has a lot of fans around the league because he is a hard-nosed, smart player — not flashy but he plays within himself and gets the job done. Which will make him an interesting fit on the Los Angeles Lakers. McRoberts signed for two years with the Lakers for the mini mid-level exception…

If you’ve wondered why there have been whispers of Rajon Rondo being on the trading block for about a year, we might have an example of why. (We’re not talking a Rondo for Chris Paul trade here, that is just smart basketball by the Celtics and Danny Ainge. The Celtics have listened to far more…

Xavier Henry, who played in only 38 games for the Memphis Grizzlies last year due to injury, was seen at Grizzlies training camp Tuesday in crutches. That’s not good. Here is the tweet from the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Henry out up to a month with torn ligaments in rt ankle. Henry in walking boot We…

“Chemistry is something that you don’t just throw in a frying pan and mix it up with another something and throw something on top of that and then fry it up and put in a tortilla and put it in microwave, heat it up, give it to you and expect it to taste good. You…

If this report is true (and we get the sense it’s pretty spot on) the Dwight Howard saga is only going to end in one of four places. Whenever it ends. Here is the tweet from ESPN’s Chris Broussard: There r only 4 teams Dwight Howard would sign longterm deal with – Orl,…

It looked like a done deal, but the trade that would have sent O.J. Mayo to the Pacers and Josh McRoberts to the Grizzlies is dead, according to tweets from the Memphis Commercial Appeal. What’s more, Mayo was told he would not be traded anywhere. The fact that the Grizzlies Xavier Henry is out for…

In Denver, it is all Tim Tebow all the time. The entire NBA seems that way lately (which is better than the all Brett Favre all the time era, I guess). So at media day we should have known that Denver coach George Karl would get a Tebow question — who is the Tim Tebow…

Somehow you know Shaquille O’Neal is going to take credit for this when he sits down in the TNT studio on Christmas. Charles Barkley has dropped 27 pounds so far thanks to Weight Watchers, who now sponsors and promotes him. “Diet is not a man’s word because we don’t like to diet—we like to eat,”…

Kwame Brown is back on the West Coast, alert the cake makers in the Bay Area. Brown has inked a one-year deal worth $7 million to play for the Golden State Warriors, tweets Sam Amick of Sports Illustrated. The Warriors have been looking for a big man not named Andris Biedrins (who many expected they…

UPDATE 11:58 am: Relax… it was just stress, according to Green. Gary Washburn of the Globe with the tweet: Jeff Green said docs were wary of stress test during physical. He attributes it to fatigue. Says he may practice today or tomorrow Okay then. We will not ask about why he was fatigued and just…

Our morning look around the NBA with stories worth reading and notes that are not their own post here at PBT. The 50 worst haircuts in NBA history. Vladimir Radmanovic is way too low at No. 12. Despite the reports to the contrary, the Nets do not have a deadline to get Dwight Howard or…

“Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of Chris Paul’s career with the Hornets….” The Chris Paul soap opera continues. The Clippers have basically moved on from the Paul talks again, according to David Aldridge at NBA.com (and Adrian Wojnaarowski at Yahoo). This is the same thing that happened on Monday — the…

You are really going to get to test the color on that new 60-inch plasma screen you are getting for Christmas. What you see to the right (and larger below) are the Christmas version of Kobe Zoom VII from our friends at Nike (via The Basketball Jones). Kobe will be wearing these on opening day/Christmas…

The Clippers are still looking at major shakeups to their lineup — trying to bring in Chauncey Billups, which could add Eric Bledsoe to a deal to acquire Chris Paul out of New Orleans — but they also want to keep their young front line together. The Clippers matched Golden State’s offer for DeAndre Jordan…

Delonte West took some odd jobs this summer for a paycheck. Now he’s back to getting a nice one with… The Dallas Mavericks, according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers were the two teams considered to be chasing West, but Dallas slid in and nabbed him for a…

Marc Gasol broke the news of his own signing Tuesday on twitter. I’m proud to say that we have reached a tentative agreement with my team @memgrizz , can’t wait to get on the court with all my teammates! Okay, he didn’t really break the news. We told you a days ago that the Grizzlies…

Chris Paul trades are like Freddy Krueger. They. Will. Not. Die. Ever. The Los Angeles Clippers and Hornets have re-opened talks on a Chris Paul trade, reports ESPN (and confirmed by other sources). Really, after killing this deal the league needed to re-engage the Clippers because the rest of the league was done dealing with…

Well, so much for the whole Chris Paul thing. The Clippers put in the high bid among multiple teams to claim Chauncey Billups off waivers, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo. Now the real question — will Billups retire or will he play for the Clippers? Billups has threatened retirement if he didn’t get sent to…

Mitch Kupchak is not a self promoter, not a guy who likes to see his name in the papers, not a guy who boasts (except about North Carolina hoops now and again). If he says something, he means it. Just like Jerry West, who he learned under (although West was more talkative than Kupchak). So…